The National Rifle Association logo is placed on the George R. Brown Convention Center by Lynn Creel, left, and Don Reynolds of Display Graphics on Wednesday, May 1, 2013, in Houston. The 2013 NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits is scheduled to being Friday. (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Johnny Hanson) ORG XMIT: TXHOU301 / Johnny Hanson AP

by Gregory Korte, USA TODAY

by Gregory Korte, USA TODAY

HOUSTON - In some ways, the national debate over gun control has been good for the National Rifle Association.

The nation's largest and most powerful gun rights group holds its annual meeting in Houston this weekend, and it's expected to be its biggest and most-watched gathering ever - perhaps 80,000 people, more than 400 exhibitors, 600 credentialed media and perhaps a future presidential candidate or two.

"I don't think there's anything this year that's business as usual. We're in a very unique point in time as far as the Second Amendment is concerned," NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said. "It's a demonstration of their passion, of the commitment and the resolve that the American people have toward their freedom."

Last month, Senate Democrats suspended votes on major gun legislation after they failed to pass a key provision that would have extended criminal background checks for most firearm purchases.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who will speak to the NRA meeting Friday, said his message is that the Obama Administration isn't doing enough to prosecute gun crimes and keep schools safe.

"Millions of Americans stood up in the last few weeks and called on the Senate to uphold the Second Amendment," Cruz said. "Everyone in my view ought to be focused on stopping violent crime."

The annual meeting is required under the NRA's bylaws to elect people to its 76-member board of directors. But the event has become more than a business meeting, and includes a gun show, awards dinners, a political rally, a prayer service, book signings and a country music concert. For the lawyers, there are even continuing legal education credits available.

Last year's meeting - a required campaign stop for GOP candidates in an election year - drew 73,740 people in St. Louis. The exact attendance in Houston won't be known until next week, but organizers say they already had 70,000 confirmed attendees earlier this week. Requests for media credentials have doubled, to 600. And they've booked three times as many hotel rooms as the 2005 meeting, when it was last in Houston.

Greg Ortale, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the convention was booked five years in advance. One draw for Houston, he said, was the state's permissive laws on the carrying of firearms.

"They have some organizing and political rallies going on, but it's mostly trade show," The vast majority of the attendees are day-trippers who will drive from Texas and neighboring states, he said.

"It's a convention that a lot of families come to. It's unique in that respect. Most people don't take their families to an oil and gas trade show," Ortale said.

The convention is expected to draw protests, but will get a welcome from at least one unlikely host: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, the Democrat who represents downtown Houston in Congress. She's tried - unsuccessfully, so far - to arrange a meeting with NRA Vice President Wayne LaPierre in an attempt to win him over on child-gun-safety legislation she has introduced.

"What I'd like to hear from the National Rifle Association, which has every right to gather in any city, is that they understand that we are a country without morality if we can't do something to protect our babies and our children," she said. "I think that if Wayne would sit down, I honestly believe we could find a rational approach to gun safety and protecting our children."

Other gun-control advocates were less optimistic, painting NRA leaders as right-wing ideologues financed by the firearms industry and increasingly out-of-touch with their own members. "They espouse an insurrectionist, anti-democratic philosophy, and they have a lot of people on their board that, to put it lightly, you wouldn't want in polite company," said Josh Horwitz, director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

Josh Sugarmann, the director of the Violence Policy Center, said polls show most gun owners support universal background checks even more stringent than those blocked last month in the Senate. But nothing will happen in Houston this weekend to moderate the NRA's stance, he said.

"The golden era of NRA debates at their annual meeting is long over," he said. "As far as any potential for a change in direction, the chances are zero."